Atheists Pray! (According to Christians)

[Jackalope]

It's not really much of a stretch for someone who believes bullshit to have additional bullshit beliefs, solely based on wishful thinking.

[KevinM1]

OP needs to get smarter friends.

[ignoramus]

OP needs to stop wasting time and just smiling and nodding once the bullshit starts spewing out.
It doesn't get any better from there....

They're everywhere!

[Magilla]

So I was at this WW1 ceremony with my school. I didn't really know wether the ceremony was going to be religious. I said to my friend "I hope we're not forced to pray". To which (suprisingly, as this guy is quite intelligent usually) he said, "Atheists pray anyway so what's wrong". This really annoyed me. I started to explain to him how Atheism is a lack of belief in a God and how praying is apparently talking to God, then Atheists can't talk to something that they don't believe in. Then obviously he started to attack me (verbally) with stuff like "praying isn't religious" or "atheists pray out of respect". I mean I just got so fucking pissed at this guy. He held onto his claim ever since even after telling him the dictionary definition of Atheism.
I might be wrong on this which I don't think I am but please write your response to this anyway.
Thanks.

Atheist prayer: { Oh Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, here be some  bones 'n' skin 'n' such, (if any be left). Ta. }

If atheists pray, there'll be no "God", no "soul", no "heaven", no "Jesus" , no "sin" no "eternal life", no "we beseech",  no . . . da de da de da . . . in the prayers.
So what in Great Flying Spaghetti Monster's name do we put into our prayers, (we atheists) ?

[Minimalist]

But unlike christards and their silly fucking jesus we know the FSM is just a joke.

[Whateverist]

Stick this up his ass.

Lost your job?  Debtors at your door?  No sweat, I'll pray for you.  =)

[Minimalist]

You sound like pope frank!

[robvalue]

Prayer is one of the most ridiculous facets of religion in my opinion. I've tried getting an answer about what exactly people hope to achieve, but it seems even the people doing it don't actually know.

If God has the best intentions and the best plan for all of us, why are you asking him to alter it in any way? Do you know better than God?

If you're never actually asking him to alter his plan, but you are asking for some kind of change, then you must be praying for the free will of others to be bent to your request or something. Or just talking to yourself, to alter your own attitudes.

If you're not requesting any change at all, what are you doing? Massaging his ego while just saying what you hope will happen? Why would you hope it would be anything different from what God plans?

If anyone has an answer to this conundrum I'd be interested to hear it.

Anyhow! An atheist can do whatever they want. They can say they are praying, although obviously if they claim they are actually talking to a god then they are contradicting themselves. They could pray to themselves, to the universe, to ghosts, or whatever. Being atheist doesn't preclude any other kind of woo beliefs.

Pretending to pray out of respect is really weird... weird if they know you are an atheist anyway. If not, I suppose I could see going along with it for a quiet life as a strategy until you get out of the situation. Not something I'd do, but there's no atheist manifesto, if you want to pretend to pray you are free to do so!

By enlarge, I'd say most atheists wouldn't pray to anything, because they tend to otherwise reject woo and would realize they are just talking to themselves. I do talk to myself however, out loud sometimes (when I'm alone of course!) but I wouldn't call it praying. I find it a useful technique for sorting through my thoughts.

[Longhorn]

Um. I agree with everybody and all that....






please don't capitalize 'atheist'. It makes me cry a little inside ._.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

So I was at this WW1 ceremony with my school. I didn't really know wether the ceremony was going to be religious. I said to my friend "I hope we're not forced to pray". To which (suprisingly, as this guy is quite intelligent usually) he said, "Atheists pray anyway so what's wrong". This really annoyed me. I started to explain to him how Atheism is a lack of belief in a God and how praying is apparently talking to God, then Atheists can't talk to something that they don't believe in. Then obviously he started to attack me (verbally) with stuff like "praying isn't religious" or "atheists pray out of respect". I mean I just got so fucking pissed at this guy. He held onto his claim ever since even after telling him the dictionary definition of Atheism.
I might be wrong on this which I don't think I am but please write your response to this anyway.
Thanks.

You could have told him that Jesus said to do one's praying in private, like going into a closet all by one's self.  Tell him that public prayer is sinful and Jesus will toss people into the lake of fire for going against his commandment.  It's biblical.